The art and life of Fukuda Kodōjin: Japan's great poet and landscape artist

Abstract

"The most comprehensive book on Kodojin's art ever published--beautiful and mysterious--a collection of more than 100 paintings with English translations of the inscribed poems. The Art and Life of Fukuda Kodōjin is the first publication in English to offer an in-depth examination of Kodōjin's life, painting, and poetry. This fully illustrated publication draws from institutions and private collections worldwide, and is the result of fifteen years of extensive research into almost eight hundred works of inscribed poetry, literati landscapes, brush paintings and calligraphy. A beautiful and contemplative look into the world of Kodōjin, this coveted edition accompanies a special exhibition held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Fukuda Kodōjin (1865-1944) was a multifaceted artist, recognized for his poetry, painting and calligraphy, and is one of a handful of artists who continued the tradition of Japanese literati painting (nanga) into the twentieth century. Kodōjin's painting style is characterized by bizarrely shaped mountain forms rendered in vivid color or monochromatic ink, often with a solitary scholar enjoying the expansive beauty of nature and bits of inscribed poetry. Creating over 700 works in his lifetime, he also made simple paintings of plants and flowers in his dramatic brushwork, and distinctive literati landscapes. Kodōjin literally means 'Old Taoist' which seems to reflect the path he chose of resilience of an old tradition facing new conditions and new challenges, and is theme felt throughout his art. There is both beauty and mystery in his life and work, and his landscapes can be rich in costly green and blue pigments, detailed layers of ink shading and strokes, or purely abstract. Unique, mysterious and distinctively expressive, The Art and Life of Fukuda Kodojin offers an unprecedented walk through the Old Taoist's mind, sure to both surprise and enlighten the curious reader, scholar, or literati enthusiast."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Director's foreword / Katherine Crawford Luber -- Preface and acknowledgments / Andreas Marks -- Early years -- Painting beginnings, 1899-1906 -- Establishing a career in painting, 1907-c.1912 -- Discovering a Mi Fu style -- Sparse monochrome landscapes, the 1910s -- The exhibition at Heian Gabō, 1919 -- Innovative experiments, 1919-20 -- Branching out, growing success, the 1920s -- "Withered Trees and an Abundance of Spring", 1927 -- Luxury in blue-green -- The Foundation of the Kodōjin Society, December 1928 -- "Rock Slivers and Lonely Clouds", 1929 -- A decade of perseverance, the 1930s -- Haiga -- Calligraphy -- Text and image in Kodōjin's paintings -- Final years, the 1940s -- Fukuda Kodōjin in the realm of the literati painting tradition / Paul Berry -- Checklist of works -- Appendix I: List of locations -- Appendix II: Seals on Kodōjin's work -- Appendix III: Kodōjin Society members and collectors, 1928-29 -- Checklist of names and terms -- References.